Cynicism; work in progress

Cynicism; a luxury I can no longer afford.

I was not thrilled when my brother emailed me last week asking if I would go to yet another meeting. I owe him big time though, in the way of meetings he has been to more and read more realms of technical and legal jargon than any non-lawyer human being should ever be subjected to. To honour this, once again, I resigned myself with as much grace as I could muster, to attending another Public Information meeting which I assumed would be another example of the ‘government’ spending money on ‘consultants’ to appease the ‘public’ by giving lip service to informing us before an outcome was predetermined and asking for input.

I’d had my own notice of this meeting and thrown it out a month ago, I saw the notice lying around at my dad’s house and scorned to even look at it. Cynical hah, I was being totally realistic! I received the notice because I’d attended the first go round of meeting on what was then referred to as the Mid Peninsula Highway. Egads, it was painful. Though technically at the preliminary stage of determining the Terms of Reference for an Environmental Assessment it was impossible not to feel the buzz that the Harris government was fast tracking the ‘Process’, that the highway was a done deal, and that the best we could hope for input on was a pathetic struggle about who’s back yard was going to be paved.

It turned out the meeting night was the only night this week both my teenage daughters were home from work and I left them at the dinner table (after only a couple sips of wine) complaining all the way. My first impression on entering the meeting room was the smell of coffee and I made a beeline. Caffeine and I do not have a good relationship but I’d done my own Needs Assessment and deemed short-term gain more important than long term sleep. The analogy here of instant gratification that justifies impacts and ignores less tantalizing options (like water or juice) seemed to correspond to my expectations of the meeting’s scheduled entertainment: A Public Stakeholder Orientation Session for the Niagara to GTA Corridor Planning and EA Study.

The purpose of the meeting was to provide an update on the study progress since the approval of the Terms of Reference, outline the planning, technical and public consultation approaches being proposed by the Study Team, and obtain feedback and advice from stakeholders. Yeah, right. Who are these stakeholders ‘they’ want advice from?? I didn’t quite roll my eyes but man, there is something odd about us paying for the services of consultants hired to make us believe a fair process has taken place with the end result that some government will get credit for a legacy of accomplishing something because dammit they know better than the masses and once they’re elected they can manipulate their mandate into any pet project they want.

Do I sound cynical? As I ...
To be continued - tomorrow if I can sleep tonight, and later tonight if the coffee does its thing.